Speaker 1 00:00:12 Hello, welcome to the Roundhouse Podcast with Paul Soro of Wichita State University Strategic Communications. Thank you for listening. We have Wichita State softball players, Zoe Jones and Sidney McKinney that are gonna discuss the upcoming softball season. Zoe Jones is a senior, an infielder from Mustang, Oklahoma. She earned all central region third team and all conference. Second team honors in 2022, hit 3 24 with 15 home runs and 12 doubles. She was also on the conference all academic team Sydnee McKinney is a senior. She's from nor Warren, Missouri. She earned second team, all American Honors and all conference Honors led the nation with a 5 22 batting average and 97 hits. She's also on the conference. All academic team shockers are practicing and they open the season on February 10 in the Bobcat Classic in San Marcos, Texas. So practices started last, last week. Let's update people. Where are you at? Describe how, what's going on as you're starting. Prepare for the season, Zoe, I'll let you go first.
Speaker 2 00:01:13 Um, it's actually been pretty good kicking the dust off a little bit from over break. We've been going a little bit alive, seeing our pictures or pitchers pitching to us. So nice friendly competition before season starts and it's just nice to be back with everybody and playing softball.
Speaker 1 00:01:31 So Sydnee, both of you're seniors, so you've been doing this for a long time. How do you keep something like this fresh and new and exciting and continue to get, you know, get something out of these practices?
Speaker 3 00:01:42 Yeah, I mean, we go out and we compete every day. Um, whether it's through scrimmaging, live situations, hitting wars just off of our pictures, it's really fun because you get a different look every day and there's a lot of new faces this year. So kind of mixes it up, changes things around, and, you know, something new every day.
Speaker 1 00:02:02 How much of that is generated by the coaches who are trying to keep things fresh and exciting? And how much of it comes from the leaders, from the upperclassmen? Zoe, how's that
Speaker 2 00:02:12 Work? Um, I think that's more of us holding each other accountable. I think we're, we do a pretty good job of holding ourselves and our teammates accountable, especially our upperclassmen, making sure our freshmen are really getting after it and showing them the importance of these last four weeks until season starts. And obviously if we're slacking, the coaches are gonna, they're gonna tell us and we're gonna make that adjustment quick. We just, we have no time to waste. So really taking advantage of the hours that we have before it all starts.
Speaker 1 00:02:42 So, sydnee your willingness to hold people accountable. Describe how that's changed from your first practices here, your first season here till now.
Speaker 3 00:02:51 Yeah, I mean, when I got here we had really strong leaders already from, um, butters to Riley, buck, Bailey Lang, Bailey Nickerson, um, Kayleigh Hiker. They, they all did a really great job of keeping everybody together, um, especially on the field. And so I didn't really have to do that for the first three years that I was here. So I think the year that they, the year after they left, the year after Oklahoma Regional, I really had to step up and figure it out myself. And it's taken, you know, collaboration with Zoe, with Lolo, with the, the coaches do a great job of collaborating with us to see what works and what doesn't. So it's just been a different step and taking on a different role than I had the first year, three years. But it's been fun, fun to learn.
Speaker 1 00:03:39 So as usual, the routine is the shockers go on the road for a lot of the first month, month and a half. Uh, you have three road tournaments this year. Texas, twice California. Zoe, give us your best tips for surviving a a long bus trip. What's the food, the movies, the music? How do you get through eight or 10 hours?
Speaker 2 00:03:57 I like to pick a show or a book. I, last season it was, I read books on the bus rides, but now I think I'm going to become a TV show kind of girl or, um, I like to watch documentaries too, so maybe documentaries. Um, my best advice is buy good pillow. I have a bamboo pillow. I don't know if you know what that is, but that's, I, it has stuck with me for four years. <laugh> my neck pillow has stuck with me for four years. Funny story, we were in Auburn my freshman year and I sent my dad to go get my neck pillow cause I was like, dad, I just slept on the plane and my neck's in a, like I got a crick in my neck. So we went to Target and he thought he was getting like a cheap, just like a cheap $10, $15. No, it was a $30. It was in the $15 slot though. So then he checked out and it was, but it stuck with me all four years <laugh>. So it was worth the $30 that he spent on my neck pillow. But invest in a good neck pillow and a pillow sleeping on the bus.
Speaker 1 00:04:55 Tell me more about a bamboo pillow. Where do you get 'em? What makes 'em so special?
Speaker 2 00:04:59 They're, I like really hard pillows. Me too. Like firm pillows. And so for like the first hour my back, like I'll sit straight up and then when I finally decide I'm going to sleep, lean it down a little bit and then my head is still pretty firm on the pillow because if you get a soft pillow it'll seep in between the seats or it'll slide down. So you have to get a firm pillow.
Speaker 1 00:05:20 Okay. Sydnee, how about you? How do you get through the road trips?
Speaker 3 00:05:23 Uh, step one snack bag. Yeah, gotta keep the snacks. Um, I'm a big podcaster so I'll download a bunch of podcasts before I get on the bus. And the other biggest thing I do is I get up and stretch throughout the night on the bus because if I don't stretch, my body is stiff as a board. <laugh>
Speaker 1 00:05:42 Old age <laugh>. What's your go-to snack?
Speaker 3 00:05:45 Go-to snack. Um, I really like sour gummy worms so I always keep those locked and loaded.
Speaker 1 00:05:51 And Zoe, you said you read a lot of books last year. Give us a book recommendation. What was your favorite?
Speaker 2 00:05:56 Um, I was was on a call in Hoover. I don't really know if they're like romance books. Um, that's what I read last year. But Taylor <unk> actually gave me a series and it's called the Twisted Series. So that's what I'm reading right now. And I think there's one or two more books that I still have left to read. So I'll probably read that and then make my way to the documentaries and the TV shows.
Speaker 1 00:06:17 Okay. So Taylor is a freshman on the team? Yes. So she's already already contributing. That's good. Yes. Yes. So something that's a lot different from last year, shockers played 27 home games, you had 11 I think last season. How much are you looking forward to more games at Wilkins Stadium? Sydnee,
Speaker 3 00:06:32 I'm so excited. Last year was a tough year traveling. You were just never home. We didn't unpack our bags, we just did laundry, threw it back in there. We're on the road again. So it's really special for us. I know the seniors that we get to be here a lot more because we really get to soak in.
Speaker 1 00:06:49 So it's really a nice non-conference schedule. Shockers have Stanford, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Minnesota, Oklahoma State, several more are all coming to Wilkins Stadium this spring. Zoe is, which non-conference opponent are you most looking forward to playing?
Speaker 2 00:07:05 Um, I think Stanford, I was talking to Coach B about this the other day. I'm pretty sure I've like crossed off all the teams that I've wanted to play as far as the Oklahoma States, the OU I Arizona State my freshman year. Played Washington a couple times. I've never played Stanford and they're well known program so I'm really excited. They've had a lot of success last year so I'm excited how we compete against him and I really think it's gonna be a good game.
Speaker 1 00:07:28 Sydnee, how about you?
Speaker 3 00:07:30 Hmm. I'm most excited to go to San Diego just cuz um, MJ Knight's the coach there, she is the GA here my freshman or sophomore year. And me and her became really close. She taught me a lot. So I'm excited to see what she's done with their program and just to compete against her <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:07:47 So the shockers go to San Diego, middle of February. It's that at University of San Diego. San Diego State will be there. Boise State University of San Diego and a couple other teams. All right then the shocker open conference play at UCF in late March. So they front loaded the schedule for, for both those teams. I was gonna go through all the dramatic meetings of those two teams over the last few years, but that would take a a long time. Yeah. So let's just skip to the point where it's been a really good rivalry over the last four or five years. Uh, UCF won the conference title last season, the Shockers won it in 2021. Sydney, you've been through a lot of those games. What makes this such a good matchup between those two schools?
Speaker 3 00:08:26 Um, you know, we're both, um, regional and beyond competitors and we know every time that we face them that we're both scrappy and <laugh>. We may not like each other, but we know that we're both gonna bring out the best in each other and, and give a really good game for the fans. And it's always the most fun game of the year, especially last year, the Friday night game when it was sold out. That was probably one of the, the best games I've ever played in. And it was just electric, so I know just whenever we play them it's gonna be fun.
Speaker 1 00:08:57 Zoe, what was your impression of last season series with, with ucf?
Speaker 2 00:09:01 Super competitive. I remember I was got to second base and I was standing there and I just like kind of looked up in the stands and I was like, wow. Because I, last year was my first year I, it was packed. It was such a competitive game. I remember me and Sid were at second base. We were just talking about how good of a game it already was and it was probably like the fourth inning and we were still down at that point, I'm pretty sure. But we knew that we were gonna come back and win. I was just in, just to be able to compete for a conference title at such a high level against like Sid said, a regional beyond team, two of 'em in Wichita in front of our fans. It was really cool.
Speaker 1 00:09:37 So Wichita State, I'm trying to look this up real quick here. You were, didn't talk long enough. Zoe, Wichita State won that first game right on the Friday night that you're referring to mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 00:09:46 <affirmative>. Yeah. Yeah. And then
Speaker 3 00:09:50 We lost twice. We
Speaker 2 00:09:51 Lost twice,
Speaker 1 00:09:51 Right. It was 11 four on Friday. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> Saturday was kind of the painful game. Eight innings, UCF one, three to one and then they went on Sunday To wrap up the, wrap up the conference title. So Sydney Zoe stepped right in last year, transferred from Texas Tech, uh, played second base, hit in the middle of the lineup. Take us back to your first impression of her. Um, what stuck out when you first met her and first saw her in practice?
Speaker 3 00:10:15 So I think at w she state we have a really good culture of weirdos, <laugh>, and so Zoe got here and she was silly, funny weirdos. So I just knew from the beginning that she was gonna fit in great with us. And as soon as practice and season started, she did, she fit right in. She was always giving us a good laugh when maybe sometimes not the right times. Yeah, I mean, read <laugh> very much comic relief. So it, it was really fun. She fit right in and now it's like she's been here for the whole, for the whole four years. Five years.
Speaker 1 00:10:48 So Zoe, I understand you're well known for kind of different phrases, day-to-day phrases. Can you give us a an example, a hint or how do you come up with these?
Speaker 2 00:10:57 Um, honestly I have, I just kind of say what comes to my brain. My favorite last year was probably Zui Mama. Yes. Um, diary of Wimpy Kid, I don't know, probably haven't seen that Joe's Middle School. But I just like feel like I just kind of say whatever comes to my brain. Sometimes it's not the right time, but I'm getting better at reading the room <laugh>. But I just feel like I'm, most of the time I'm not in a bad mood because softballs kind of might get away from everything. So if I'm out here playing softball, I mean I could go all for four but I'm still gonna have the same level head as I did if I was going four for four. So. Well,
Speaker 1 00:11:36 And softball seems to be a sport oriented toward those kind of personalities. I mean there's a lot of chatter. There's this team seems to be very freedom of expression, kind of people are doing what they like to do. Uh, and it's also a daily game. You gotta be able to, you know, if you owe oh for four on Friday, you gotta put that away. Does you know, for Saturday and Sunday, does that help? Do you have a softball kind of personality in that way I
Speaker 2 00:12:01 Guess? Yeah, and I definitely feel like that comes with growth. My freshman year I was a lot harder on myself cause I was nervous. I was the o only freshman on the field. I was scared if I messed up the seniors weren't gonna look at me the same or I wasn't gonna look at myself the same. But that's just kind of something that you have to learn. And Coach B's really good about letting you express yourself and play the way that you're gonna play and what makes you be the best player. And it's nice because, I mean, talking through things, if I'm doing bad I can talk to Sid or I can talk to Addie, I can talk to Coach. I, we, we can all talk to each other and talk through things, which is really nice.
Speaker 1 00:12:35 So Zoe, you are from Mustang, Oklahoma, which is also the home of Madison Paragon Butters. She was mentioned earlier in the, in the podcast to catch her at Wichita State. How much did knowing her play into your decision to, to come to Wichita State?
Speaker 2 00:12:49 A ton actually. Yeah, I really, I really wish I could have played with Butters for a little bit longer. Me and Butters were really close in high school. Um, but I just knew she was going to tell me how she wasn't gonna lie to me. And she just told me how much she loved it and I just respect butters so much and the player that she is and the person that she is and she really helped me through high school and I knew she was gonna lead me in the right path in college to making that decision and transferring here. And I couldn't thank her enough, honestly. It's been really nice. She told me that she loved to here and how great her experience was and so it definitely played a big part in,
Speaker 1 00:13:26 So Zoe, you played a lot of second base last year. This year you may move around, may play third, may play first. How do you prepare, what's your spring practices like as you're preparing to change positions?
Speaker 2 00:13:37 Um, I mean, just another day at practice I did the similar, similar thing my sophomore year. Um, when I was still at Tech, I was going back from first to second game to game. And so, I mean it's just, it's the same game just from a different angle. Third base is a little bit different than first. I mean, I don't, as long as I can help my team, I don't really care.
Speaker 1 00:14:03 So Zoe, you make the decision. You're coming to Wichita State. I'm, I don't know how much you knew about Sydney or heard about Sydney before you got here, but I'm assuming at least something. Yeah. Uh, tell me about your first impressions. When did you get to practice and realize what she can hit the softball pretty effectively?
Speaker 2 00:14:19 Well, I definitely thought Sid was a fifth year when I transferred until Coach B told me that Sid was going to lunch with us. And I was like, oh my gosh. I was like, I'm gonna get to play a year with Sid. Like, you know, I, cuz I watched Wichita all Haws games cuz that was the year you guys beat Oklahoma State every time, right? Yeah. <laugh>. And so I was like, yes, like this is awesome. Like, cuz I had never been in Oklahoma State and I was like, you know, super excited. I had really watched Sid Addie Butters Neely and I was just, I don't know, I just knew Sid was really good and then I saw her at practice and it was just like, oh, she's that good. And I think what really like stood out in my brain was Sid at shortstop. I haven't seen anybody play short like Sid to be honest. And she hits everything left. Yesterday when we were hitting off the machine, Sid literally just, and I was just like, how did she do it? How did she do it? And did they just fall in and there she goes, trucking her on the basis
Speaker 3 00:15:21 Tough it's tough day yesterday hitting
Speaker 1 00:15:24 <laugh>. So you thought she was gone?
Speaker 2 00:15:25 Yeah. Yeah. You think she
Speaker 1 00:15:27 Thought?
Speaker 2 00:15:27 No, I thought Sid was older.
Speaker 3 00:15:28 That's a common trend. I think everybody was
Speaker 2 00:15:31 Place. Cause you the red hair. The red hair made the red hair a
Speaker 3 00:15:34 Lot older. Well, I got here and I had short blonde hair and then I grew it out. Yeah. To, to red hair. And then it was dark and now it's like,
Speaker 2 00:15:42 Well, and when I was watching you play, she just did, I mean obviously you're a junior at that sophomore technically, yeah. Whatever. Covid maybe. But I definitely, Sid was definitely playing like a fifth year already and I was like, dang. Like it would be really cool to play with. And I knew Addie was a freshman, so I knew I would get to play with Addie. But it's cool that me and Cider and sang green
Speaker 3 00:16:01 And we get still here. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:16:02 All this
Speaker 1 00:16:03 Together. Not just one season, but two seasons. Yeah. All right. Let's get some fans prepared, give them some insight into what they might be seeing out on the field. Uh, give us a teammate, maybe somebody who didn't play a whole lot or played more of a secondary role last year. Give us a teammate who made a big impression on you this fall. And people should be paying attention to
Speaker 3 00:16:22 Caroline. Talent. Talent. That girl works her butt off in the weight room, hitting field. Um, just being a good friend, picking up, setting up her grades. She's crazy smart, but she worked her butt off over break. Um, and she can crush a ball and I think she's gonna have a big impact on us this year.
Speaker 1 00:16:43 I've heard interesting things about her. She plays maybe some first base, maybe some outfield. Yeah, she's running out. Yeah. Great student. And is is working on her own batting gloves, something like that. She's like an engineering major. Oh,
Speaker 2 00:16:57 She's an engineer Engineering major. She is, she was aerospace but now she's mechanical. Okay. Yeah. So either way. Really smart. But she's been working her tail off and she would go to the end of the earth for this program and for anybody, so it's really nice.
Speaker 1 00:17:10 Okay. Interesting. Yeah, one of the coaches had mentioned her to me. Uh, how about a newcomer? Give us a newcomer who, uh, people should be paying attention to.
Speaker 2 00:17:19 I think Taylor Solak is the exact same way she would go to the ends of the earth of a team and she's not gonna stop until she thinks that she's just about as close as perfect as she can get. Yep. She's really competitive. She's such a team player and is willing to do whatever. Okay. And she's been swinging it too.
Speaker 1 00:17:37 All right. Very good. Sydnee McKinney, Zoe Jones. Thanks for your time. Yeah,
Speaker 3 00:17:41 Thank you so much.
Speaker 4 00:17:54 Hi, this is Rick Yuma, president of Wichita State University. Check out the latest episode of the Forward Together podcast. Each episode I sit down with different guests from Chak Nation to celebrate the vision and mission of Wichita State University. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 5 00:18:23 Thank you for listening to the Roundhouse Podcast. Courtesy of Wichita State Strategic Communications. We encourage you to rate, review, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can find more roundhouse
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Speaker 6 00:18:38 It's over. It's over. Ladies and gentlemen. Say it slowly and savor it. Wichita State is going to the Final four for the first time in 48 years.
Speaker 7 00:18:53 Unbelievable. What a scene folks. The shocker fans are just going crazy in the stands.
Speaker 6 00:18:58 Just maybe the greatest win in the history of Wichita State Basketball.
